Hello everyone,

Thanks to those of you who came out to watch our MIAC and North Regional races! It was great to see so many familiar faces.

MIAC Championships

The MIAC meet was held back in St. Paul, at a neutral site, for the first time since 2016 – and it was great. The course was wonderful, we had more fans and alumni come out to spectate than in recent years when the meet was not in the Twin Cities, and our guys ran great too. We finished 2nd, our highest finish since also placing 2nd in 2016, and had four All-MIAC performers, which was the most since 2007.

NCAA North Regional

We came into the regional meet hoping to take another step forward from our MIAC performance, and ended up finishing 7th in what we think is the toughest region in the country. Our guys again ran well and, other than some small adjustments for the future, we thought each guy ran about as good of a race as they could’ve. At the end of the day we wanted better than 7th, but that’s what keeps the fire lit for the future. Junior Lloyd Young qualified for the NCAA Championships individually for the second year in a row with his 10th place finish.

NCAA Division III Championships – Tomorrow!

Lloyd, as well as CSB’s top runner Fiona Smith, are both racing this weekend at the NCAA Championships in Lansing, Michigan with the women racing first at 11 a.m. Eastern Time and the men following at 12 p.m. Noon Eastern Time. Lloyd and Fiona finished 52nd and 5th last year, respectively, and both will be looking to improve on those performances come race day. Here is the link to the live stream to watch the races: https://www.ncaa.com/event/4230

DIII Men's Cross Country Championship - NCAA.com

DIII Men's Cross Country Championship on

www.ncaa.com

Tune in!

Until next time,

Tim & Maxwell

The MIAC Championship Cross Country Championship will return to St. Paul this Saturday, October 29 at the Highland 9 Hole Golf Course. The race begins on Edgecumbe Avenue about 100 meters south of Montreal. The finish line will be on along Montreal Avenue about 100 meters west of Edgecumbe. The women’s 6K race will start at 11:00 AM and the men’s 8K race will start at noon.

St. Olaf, Saint John’s, and Carleton are ranked 3rd, 7th, and 8th in the North Region. On the women’s side, St. Olaf, Carleton, Saint Ben’s, and Bethel are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 8th.

Junior Lloyd Young (3rd at the MIAC Championship and 52nd at the NCAA Championship a year ago) will lead the Saint John’s effort. He has a strong supporting cast including seniors Dillon Diekmann, Mitchell Grand, Alexei Hensel and Tom Nemanich; juniors Carter Grove and Tommy Allen; and sophomore Eamon Cavanaugh. As ever, everybody on every team will compete in the varsity race.

It will be a great event on a wonderful spectator course. We hope to see you there.

PS: No dogs on the course!

Thank you to all for your generosity on our September 2 Go Johnnies fundraiser and of course at other times throughout the year. It is clear you know how much this enhances what we are able to do both fall and spring.

If you would like to purchase quality Saint John’s Cross Country t-shirts and sweatshirts and hats and such, you can do so by going to the link immediately below. Note that the ordering deadline is this Saturday, September 25 at midnightSeptember. You can have your item(s) delivered to your home address. This is not a Saint John’s fundraiser.

• Bigteamstore.com

• Passcode SJUCC21

• Oredr items

• Deadline 12:01 AM Sunday, September 26

After all the busy work of getting the school year and the season started, we are now (finally) much more about cross country than administration. No more forms to fill out! Coaches and especially athletes rejoice.

Our September 4 opener with Trinity College (North Dakota) at St. Cloud’s Boulder Ridge Golf Course satisfied the NCAA requirement that we race within two weeks of the start of practice. It also allowed us to knock some of the rust off and give us a fuzzy notion of where we were. Sophomore Lloyd Young led the way in 20:49 over the 6400 meter course. A very nice day in what has been a beautiful September in total.

We enjoyed a much bigger field and excellent competition at St. Olaf on Saturday, including five of the top nine ranked teams in our new North Region (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Finlandia of Michigan). We came fifth as a team with senior Andy Goldsmith leading the way in 11th place at 25:57. Andy and most all his teammates took a big step forward. Lloyd Young was fulfilling National Guard responsibilities but will be with us when we compete at the Hamline Invitational on Friday, October 1. That race will be a 4:30 PM start at the Highland Park 9 hole golf course in St. Paul. Come watch us if you are able.

Results for all our races can be found at gojohnnies.com

Tim

So much of what we do is made possible by the generosity of our alumni and friends. Tomorrow is the Go Johnnie Challenge. If you able to support the team again or for the first time, you can do so by going to this website.

2021 Go Johnnies Challenge · GiveCampus

Thanks for your financial support and for all the support which does not have a dollar figure on it. Our alumni are the best, as you all know.

2021 SAINT JOHN’S CROSS COUNTRY

This fall’s team numbers thirty-two. We were back on campus on August 23, one week before school begins. Because NCAA rules require that we race within two weeks of the start of practice, we will be host to a very small intercollegiate meet this Saturday, September 4 at Boulder Ridge Golf Course in St. Cloud. Saint Ben’s will compete at 9:30, and we will follow at 10:00 over 6400 meters.

A number of our guys took a big step forward last spring on the track. The following placed at 800 meters on up, and all return this fall. The year in school was their academic standing last spring.

Alexei Hensel So 800 M, 6th PR 1:54.82

Nate Clausing So 800 M, 7th PR 1:55.03

Mitchell Grand So 1500 M, 7th PR 3:55.90

Tommy Allen Fr 1500 M, 6th PR 3:58.80

Tom Nemanich So Steeplechase, 4th PR 9:43.02

Lloyd Young So 5000 M, 5th PR 14:49.63

10000 M, 6th PR 31:29.05

Andy Goldsmith Jr 10000 M, 7th PR 31:43.08

Steeplechasers Nate Meyer (now a senior) and Carter Grove (a sophomore) had good summers and are among others who will vie for a top seven spot in November.

A big change in Division III cross country is regional realignment. There are now ten regions. Minnesota and Wisconsin schools (and Finlandia College of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula) make up the North Region. There are still 32 teams advancing to the national meet, but only the winning team at each of the ten region meets will be an automatic qualifier. The remaining 22 will be decided by committee. There is no cap to the number of teams that may advance from any one region. The North Region Championship this fall will be at Whitetail Golf Course in Colfax, Wisconsin. This is Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s inviational course, which is about as good as it gets.

Other news: Maxwell Kuzara, SJU 2017, is our cross country assistant coach. Maxwell brings a experience, wisdom, and passion. Maxwell was with us last spring, and the team is happy to see him return.

Our 5K intra squad at Boulder Ridge Golf Course in St. Cloud (also a virtual dual with Concordia-Moorhead) went very well. Weather was as predicted less the precipitation, and the course, although a little soft in stretches, was in good shape and ran pretty fast. We still had nine on the sidelines, but we are getting there. Concordia’s times from their own 5K run in Moorhead beat us by a 28-29 margin. They finished 1-2-4, but we did have eight runners in front of their fifth man.

Kudos to our first finisher, junior Andy Goldsmith from Cascia Hall in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by way of La Crosse Aquinas. Andy began emerging last November when he was suddenly running in our top five with times in the mid 26’s. I told him he reminds me of another great runner from Aquinas who, like him, was always the first to arrive at practice. I cannot remember that fellow’s name, but his initials are Charlie Mahler.

Next up are time trials on the track on Saturday, October 17. While we had fancied our distance runners getting after a 5K, I would not be surprised if they opt to take a crack at the mile. They have added a gear or two over the past several weeks and I believe they would be confident in running it aggressively. And it would set them up for the 8K races to follow. We shall see.

Thanks to all who supported the cross country and track and field teams with the Johnnie Challenge earlier this month. A year from now, when, hopefully, we are able to travel again, we will renew using your generosity. For now, we are staying close to home and measuring ourselves with intra-squad competitions.

We began with a September 2 three mile time trial on the Wobegon Trail, running west to east. We started this run in eight waves departing at one minute intervals. Each wave was made up of a “pod” of three to five people who were mostly roommates. On a warm day, our top finisher was freshman Lloyd Young in 15:34. It was a start.

On Saturday, September 18 we met at the track for 800 and 1600 meter time trials. Runners started at 10 second intervals, essentially solo runs. Results were not spectacular, but we knocked a lot of rust off. Top performers were sophomores Alexei Hensel and Mitchell Grand in 2:02.8 and 4:30.9, respectively,

This past Saturday, September 25, we convened on the track again for 1600 and 3200 meter time trials. With little wind and temp in the mid 50s, conditions were favorable. More, I could sense our guys were starting to feel they were gaining racing fitness and looking forward to racing. We raced in groups of three to five.

1600 Meters

Tommy Allen, Fr 4:44.24

Seth Jackson, Sr 4:44.46

Danny Kloeppner, So 4:51.46

Carter Grove, Fr 4:55.94

Riley Berg, So 4:55.94

Nico Merickel, So 4:58.37

Charlie Otto, Jr 5:00.10

Max Vogel, Fr 5:01.57

Josh Anderson, Fr 5:05.57

Jacob Czech, Sr 5:07.73

Robbie Smith, Fr 5:14.75

3200 Meters

Mitchell Grand, So 9:29.34

Lloyd Young, Fr 9:30.41

Andy Goldsmith, Jr 9:36.71

Tom Nemanich, So 9:42.92

James Schwinghamer, Fr 9:45.50

Ryan Houseman, Sr 9:48.70

Alexei Hensel, So 9:49.71

Nathan Clausing, So 9:59.92

Nate Meyer, Jr 10:02.90

Sam Rengo, So 10:07.00

Justin Brakob, Sr 10:19.58

Bobby Harrison, Jr 12:10.98

Mostly minor ailments kept twelve others on the sideline, and more will race this Saturday in a 5K cross country race at Boulder Ridge Golf Course in St. Cloud. The Saint Ben’s team will race at 10:40; our Saint John’s team will follow at 11:10. This will be a virtual competition with Concordia-Moorhead’s team running a 5K cross country race on a home course of their own. We will compare times. Happily, the Boulder Ridge course is flat and, weather allowing, should run pretty fast. Expected weather at this writing is 42 degrees, 25 percent chance of precipitation, 3 mph.

After a lonely spring, it is great having the team together again. More to come.

SEPTEMBER 3 GO JOHNNIES CHALLENGE

The Go Johnnies Challenge is tomorrow, Wednesday, September 3. Jeremy did a great job of laying out the opportunities to contribute to the track and field and cross country teams in the blog he sent earlier today. I will include those opportunities, too, and the end of this report. He wrote a great blog, and I guarantee you will want to read it. Here’s a video describing The 2020 Jermey vs. Joe Decathlon Challenge they came up with.

OUR CROSS COUNTRY FALL

Thirty-eight souls have reported for the start of our cross country season. With the conference meet scheduled on April 10 at St. Olaf, it will be a long season. And that’s more than okay. It’s great to be back together again, and we hope we can keep it that way. Save when running or in their dorm rooms or apartments, everybody is masked up.

I am attaching our training and intra-squad racing plan for the fall. It will be a little different. We all missed the outdoor season, so we are going to have a bit of a hybrid approach which gives the mid-distance runners a chance to find a bit of their sweet spot this fall. We kicked things off this afternoon with a three mile time trial on the Wobegon Trail. We sized up the wind and put it at our backs.

Unless we have five or more intercollegiate cross country competitions next March and April (and we won’t), this cross country season will not count against anybody’s eligibility. So any person who happens to be back for a fifth fall will be good to go.

Saint Ben’s coach Robin Balder-Lanoue texted me this morning about a virtual 5K with Concordia on October 3 if we are interested. To keep things fair, I presume that would be on our respective tracks. This might work. You can see we had planned on a 5K or 8K intra-squad on Wildcat (by the Maple Sugar Shack) that day. And our Saint John’s track is more sheltered from big winds than is the Concordia track, so this might be more than fair.

I like our team a lot and in every way. Top returners from a year ago include:

Noah Webb (Sr., St. Cloud Tech): Noah has been in our top seven the past two falls and ran 25:58.3 on the Wartburg course at Regions as a sophomore.

Dillon Diekmann (Jr., Cretin-Derham Hall): Dillon was our third finisher at Regions a year ago.

Andy Goldsmith (Jr., Cascia Hall, Tulsa, Okla.): Andy emerged as our fourth finisher in 26:32.5 at last fall’s MIAC Championship.

Mitchell Grand (So., Hutchinson): Mitchell ran in our top seven as a freshman and finished 5th in last spring’s MIAC indoor mile in 4:19.66.

Tom Nemanich (So., Red Wing): Tom was All-Conference Honorable Mention with his 25th place finish in 26:14.2 last fall as a freshman.

Lloyd Young (Fr., Bloomington Kennedy): After a summer and fall of National Guard service, Lloyd enrolled last spring and ran indoor bests of 4:24.87 and 8:55.19 in the mile and 3K, respectively.

Support for this lead cast will come from a lot of others, including a bevy of strong middle-distance runners who had good summers and have an affinity for the 8K distance, too. You can find the complete college racing record of any collegiate athlete at tfrrs.com

A BUSY SPRING

Looking on the bright side, we are a young team, so a cross country championship on April 10 may be a good thing. This fall will be a big stepping stone. Next winter and spring will be, hopefully, busy. A MIAC indoor championship the last weekend in February. Weather allowing, a cross country race in mid-March. (Those who raced in the 1991 MIAC “Halloween Blizzard 28 inches of snow let’s move the meet to St. Olaf on Wednesday and plow a one mile loop and run it five times in a ten below zero windchill” Championship will be asking themselves, “Weather allowing?”) And then an outdoor season. Wonderful!

This all requires good science and good health. Godspeed to us all. Here we go!

Tim

MAKING A GIFT

There are a number of ways you can help:

1. Support the TF/CC programs through a simple donation. Make sure to set TF/CC as the designation. DONATE

2. Become an advocate and encourage and promote the event on any social media outlets. ADVOCATE

3. If so inclined, set up a matching gift that will encourage others to donate. Make sure to set TF/CC as the matching designation. MATCHING GIFT

a. Enter dollar amount and decide if you will make the full gift regardless If the match is not complete met (check box)

b. Select “Other” and enter a dollar amount to give and check the “Per donor” box

c. Select the Match a designation box and select the designation you want to match

d. Fill out the rest of the form

As you may know, our 2020 cross country season has been moved to the spring. Conference coaches have been charged with determining how best to get this done. I have already told Jeremy he would have to find his own distance runners next spring. Seriously, if you have any ideas, send them my way, and quickly. We coaches have a zoom meeting on Tuesday, August 4. The best I can come up with is an 8K road race the Saturday after indoor nationals. Maybe at the State Fairgrounds. After that, let’s just do track and field.

Cross country will be able to practice with coaches all fall and race as many as four times in the spring without losing eligibility. So at least we get to be together. For the first time, the team returns to campus one week before classes start. I had planned on doing this anyway, as it has become increasingly difficult to begin our season around Orientation. This will give us chance to have a few two-a-days and a little orientation time of our own before things get busy. It will also help the University phase in the return of students. We are hopeful we can have a healthy fall across both campuses. With that in mind, I have asked our guys to bring lawn chairs with them when they return.

More than any other sport, distance runners can keep on training through odd times. This has been an opportunity to train well and run a lot of miles. But twelve months without a race is too long. We are going to do some fun things this fall from 1500 meters through 8000 meters. Picture a 5K under the lights with racers starting in lanes 1, 3, 5, and 8. Lanes all the way. Lane 8 will run 11 laps and 85 meters.

St. Michael’s Games afficionados will appreciate that the egg toss will be a solo event. You toss it, you catch it.

Finally (for now), please see the attachment below if you would like to order Saint John’s Cross Country tee-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, etc. This is NOT a fundraiser. All deliveries will be to your home address. Note that your deadline for ordering is Wednesday, August 5.

Best to you and yours,

Tim

320-291-4795

tmiles@csbsju.edu

The gun goes off, and I think to myself, “How great is this.”

Wartburg hosted the NCAA Central Regional on their campus course. This is a very good course which hosted nationals in 2010. This year, after a wet fall and with late morning temperatures creeping into the mid to high 30s, the course ran sloppier and seemingly 40 seconds slower than last year’s frozen track.

Our guys raced well – our best outing of the fall – and finished 9th with 272 points in a 31-team field.

Champion Carleton and runner-up Wartburg are automatic qualifiers to nationals. St. Olaf and St. Thomas came 3rd and 4th and will also be racing in Louisville. Carleton’s Matt Wilkinson ran an even-paced race and won going away in an exceptional 24:56.8. Full results can be found at: https://results.wayzatatiming.com/meets/4768 or gojohnnies.com/

HIGH POINT FEVER

Beginning midway through the season, at every competition, my old teammate Kevin Carlson (’75) would call me within minutes of our last man crossing the line. “How did Mitchell finish? What was his place?” Indeed, Freshman Mitchell Grand of Hutchinson was turning heads in his pursuit of the 2019 High Point Man title. Grand was among our scoring five in five of his six races, and he tallied an impressive 329 points to lead the team. Carlson has remained Saint John’s All-Time Career High Point Man since tallying an even 1000 points during his storied career from 1971 to 1974.He is fain to see his career mark surpassed but offers young Mitchell some advice, “The key is the national meet. A guy can score a lot of points at a national meet.”

*Kevin was three times All-Conference in cross country and won conference titles on the track at three miles as a sophomore and at six miles as a senior.

IN THE VAN

in the early years, guys brought their favorite tapes, and we all listened to the same music. Then headsets came along and it was every man for himself. Our 2019 team plays chess versus each other on their smart phones. Our team GPA, the finest in the college.

OUR WINTER PLAN

2 weeks light running / active recovery

December 5 weeks to Increase mileage

January 6 return to campus approaching peak training volume

CONFERENCE MEET PHOTOS courtesy of BJ PICKARD and EMILY CARR of the MIAC OFFICE

Last Friday’s Fall Finale was like a lot of our Fall Finales: low 30s and gray skies going quickly to nightfall, our last finisher nearly in the dark. We tip our hats to those like-minded programs which look for a late-season racing opportunity for those not in their top seven: Gustavus, Hamline, Bethel, Martin Luther College, and the University of Minnesota (running unattached this time around). Thanks for coming again this year.

For the real old-timers (pre 1996) who never took part as a competitor or as an official (our top seven every year), it goes like this. The Fall Finale is six days after the conference meet. If we still have daylight saving time, we start at 5:00 PM. If not, as this year, we start at 4:30 and hope nobody gets stuck in the woods after dark.

The race starts on Water Tower Road, between the Prep School and the water towers. The women’s 5K starting line is 30 meters behind the men’s 8K starting line. At the gun, both men and women head for the driveway that drops below the Prep School dormitory, cross the Prep soccer field, and then take a right at the Chapel Trail. After about 500 meters on the Chapel Trail, take the trail which brings you right to the back of the Prep School. Take a left onto the sidewalk which wraps around the Prep School and goes back to Water Tower Road. Now up the “Upper Entrance Road” toward the foot bridge, but take a right to enter the trail where the old SJU Invite course re-entered the woods. Onto that trail and come out on the road behind the Prep School softball field dugouts. Take a right and head back to the entrance road. Take a left and back toward the start. Repeat. The second lap, however, includes a 545 meter loop on the grassy field below the Prep School before getting on the Chapel Trail.

Women run a shorter variation: only one Prep School loop but two consecutive loops on the north end. Men and women use the same finish chute, then we hand out results and top ten tee-shirts at the indoor track.

There is a lot of positive energy. Although the course is 60 percent asphalt, it twice climbs from the lake to the water tower. An honest 8000 meters which runs, I think, about 15 seconds faster than the Como 8K. A chance for a fast time. A lot of fans in a somewhat confined area with the women finishing in one direction while the men run the opposite way. Intimate and hectic. Steve Plasencia first brought his Gophers to the race in 2006. The next day, at the State Meet, he told me “I really liked the collegiality”. Yes.

You can Find Fall Finale and all other results at gojohnnies.com, but a quick shout out to senior Sam Cruz, our first finisher in 26:57. I believe Andy Clasen has Saint John’s best ever Fall Finale time at 26:15 in 2010. If I am incorrect, I’m certain Andy will let us know. Alumni are always welcome. Todd Hierlmaier (2001) and Sam Friesen (2017) joined the fray last week.

Next up: Saturday’s NCAA III Central Regional at Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa. 11 AM. Wish us well as we do you.

The Fall Finale

By Stewart Pidrimes

The geese fly south, the geese fly low

November’s come, their time to go

Leaves turn red, yellow, brown

Fallen, deep, upon the ground

With blue sky we are rare blessed

Winter soon will be our guest

But not yet done, we toe the line

To run the hillsides one last time

Running tall and looking good

We take our footrace to the wood

One last chance to meet the test

To lace them up and do our best

Snow will soon be here, we reckon

Days get short and winter beckons

But we’re not done, not yet by golly

Till we have run the Fall Finale

This is a busy week in Collegeville with our Fall Finale on Friday and our top eight readying for the Central Regional next Saturday, November 17, at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. Friday looks to be racing friendly: 33 degrees and 10 mph on a course that is pretty-well protected. Visiting teams will be Gustavus, Hamline, Bethel, Martin Luther, five Golden Gophers running unattached, and of course Saint Ben’s running on the women’s side. Race time is 4:30 PM.

Last Saturday at the MIAC Championship on Carleton’s outstanding course, pretty much our whole team stepped forward with much better races, and we finished sixth with 143 points. Senior Trey Collins (17th, 26:02) and freshman Tom Nemanich in (25th, 26:14) earned Honorable Mention All-Conference. Junior Noah Webb (26th, 26:15), sophomore Andy Goldsmith (34th, 26:32), and freshman Mitchell Grand (41st, 26:56) completed our scoring five. Sophomore Justus Fast (49th, 27:05) and junior Ryan Houseman (51st, 27:06) came 6th and 7th.

This was a big step forward for the team. A “finally” meet, and it was fun to see. We were better positioned in the early going and moved up throughout. We come out of this meet with a different view of the Regional, especially with sophomore Dillon Diekmann (a little bit snake bit with injuries) rejoining his teammates in Waverly. I like this team.

We are not finished yet and, to that end, I am including below a column I wrote for The Record in March of 1996. Each coach in turn was asked to report on their team’s season, and it was my turn.

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE

This is undoubtedly the worst time to ask me to write a column. March is the longest month of our season. We have been training either on icy roads or indoors for eight weeks. We competed in the conference indoor meet the first weekend of the month and now are in a watching and waiting mode to see how soon the snow will disappear. (The ice was entirely off the Sag on March 26 in 1981, a very good year.) The Palaestra arena is never more stark and barren than during these days in March. Late in the month I know I will be questioning my life decision to become a track and field coach, never mind that eleven months of the year I am confident I have the best possible "job". And so I was reassured this morning when Dan Besemann, our decathlete who loves our sport as much as anybody I know, told me he's got the blahs, too. He had just finished throwing the discus ... into a net. And it is reassuring to know, from experience, that all will be better than well on that first day I am standing under glorious sunshine and watching our track and field athletes do track and field things.

In the meanwhile, we have a lot of work to do, and we keep on keeping on. Cross country and track and field are much more about training than playing. Fans and fanfare are few, but I am more than appeased by knowing our sport has great appeal to folks who value intrinsic rather than extrinsic rewards. These are good people to join in an endeavor.

In 1972 Frank Shorter won the Olympic Marathon in Munich. In 1976 he finished second in Montreal. I was student teaching at Cretin High School in St. Paul, and my supervising teacher's summation of Shorter's finish was simple: "Poor Shorter. Four years of training wasted." Never mind that this fellow was an exceptional chemistry teacher; he failed to appreciate that, for Shorter, the real reward of averaging 120 miles per week over an eight year period was in the journey. When we undertake any serious athletic endeavor, we have to understand that, on that final day, there are no guaranteed walks to the top step (or any step) of the victory stand. The journey alone may have to be enough, and so it had better be.

That being so, I will still tell one story with a happy ending.

Mike McGowan and I began together at Saint John's in the fall of 1979, he as a freshman distance runner and me as cross country and track and field coach. Mike had been a state champion in the mile at Blue Earth, and he enjoyed an exceptional freshman season at Saint John's, finishing fifth at 1500 meters at the MIAC championship. His time, 3:55.7, was the equivalent of a 4:15 mile.

Over the next three years, Mike showed marked improvement in cross country, but after finishing a disappointing fifth in his final MIAC championship, his 1500 meters best remained at 3:55.7. He had yet to ever qualify for an NCAA track and field championship. One week later, Mike toed the line at the Carleton Last Chance Meet. He ran a smart and relaxed race and crossed the finish line in 3:52.1, setting a school record, qualifying for nationals, and sending his teammates into a whooping frenzy. My scalp tingled. Mike graduated the next day (he called it a "good" weekend), and the following Thursday he improved again to

3:51.9 in the qualifying round at the NCAA championship. In Saturday's final he finished ninth in 3:49.9, faster than five of the winning times in years since.

Happy endings are never guaranteed. We know only one thing for certain: if Mike McGowan had not brought his humility and pride to that Carleton starting line, his personal best would still be 3:55.7. His real glory was in having tried. Another moral: it is never too late.

Telling old stories is pleasant. Seeing new ones unfold, especially in outdoor championship competition, is exciting. And so we keep on training in anticipation of new stories and new heroes. It's enough to keep a guy going, even in March.

Tim Miles

March, 1996

Pat Haws, our swimming and diving coach for about thirty years, told me he stumbled onto something that really helped him and his divers in practice and competition. He would time his diver from first motion until the moment of departure. Which had nothing (and everything) to do with what happened in the air. Too fast or too slow got a less than optimal result.

Joe Vardas, our jumps coach, will tell you that if the first phase of the triple jump is too elevated, the jumper will spend the next two phases “in crisis management”.

After watching a bevy of terrific discus throwers in the MIAC in 1980, my first year coaching at Saint John’s, I went to the Olympic Trials in Eugene and could not believe how “slow” the 200 and 225 foot guys were in the back of the circle. Al Oerter, Mac Wilkins, John Powell, et al for you old-timers.

My brother, Bill, tells how, when one of his Wayzata runners opened an early season 1600 meter race in 59 seconds, he (Bill) hollered with great gusto “3:56, Jimmy, 3:56!!” He made his point, and the race result much more so.

A good beginning is paramount, and our team executed much better at the UW La Crosse Jim Drews Invitational this past Saturday. We will attempt to do better still at the MIAC Championship, our next outing. Of course racing fitness is never static. We never know what our optimum pace and early positioning may be on the next race day, but we want to put ourselves in or near a spot where we can get our best result. That is to say, we love it when “5:10 becomes the new 5:20”. Which is really what we are all about. Redefining ourselves.

The wet weather afforded us the opportunity to do 10 x 400 (fast and relaxed) on the outdoor track yesterday (the football team went under the bubble). With the reshaping of the intramural fields, we now have a nice 700 meter loop which has served us well, but it was just a little soggy. Saturday morning we will do a three mile tempo run on Collegeville.

And then the MIAC Championship at Carleton on Saturday, November 2. We race at 11:00, the women race at noon. The State Meet is on the other side of town at St. Olaf. Come and watch us.

Enjoy your fall. It is beautiful up here in Collegeville.

Hello. I apologize for not writing more often. I cite two reasons. First, I need to dumb down my blogging expectations of myself. That is, I need to remind myself I am not trying to write the perfect letter of recommendation for a graduate school applicant. Nor the perfect poem. I read Neil Young’s biography of a few years ago, Waging Heavy Peace, in which he unapologetically admits to having written a lot of lousy songs. Which makes it easier for me to accept having written a lot of lousy poems. And I will ride that horse as I write these blogs.

Second, there has not been much to report. We have under-performed our first three times out (Luther, Carleton, and Eau Claire) largely because I have over-coached, too often telling stories of past teams running an even pace and running their intemperate competitors down. But times have changed. For some time now, fields have been running much more intelligent races than in the past. So far this fall, we have been starting too slow and too far back and not getting engaged in the race. Never more so than our last effort at Eau Claire.

I like our team. As ever, terrific people. And we can run a little bit. Trey Collins (Senior, Royalton, Minn.), off a 1200 mile summer, leads the way. Trey has placed third in both the 5000 and 10,000 at MIAC Outdoors, and he was 7th at the Carleton Invitational. Dillon Diekmann (Sophomore, Cretin-Derham Hall, St. Paul, Minn.) performed well at Carleton, too, in 20th place with his best race ever. And Freshman Tom Nemanich (Red Wing, Minn.) is off to a good start, having run 26:11 at Eau Claire. Noah Webb (junior, Tech, St. Cloud, Minn.) also had a very good summer. Noah was 45th at the Central Regional last fall in 25:58. We have a lot of candidates to flush out our top seven creditably, once we begin racing well. Our next meet is the UW La Crosse Invitational which is now run at the Ettrick Country Club in Ettrick, Wisconsin. We race at 10:30 on Saturday, October 19.

COACHING POSITIONS

Every now and then, I am made aware of college cross country and/or track and field coaching openings near and far. Please let me know if you would like such information forwarded your way.

FINISH THE RUN

It was great to see so many Saint John’s and Saint Ben’s alums remembering David Forster (2011) at the 4th annual Finish the Run 5K on Boom Island on September 8. A great event which reminds us to “live with intention”. See you next year. And next time, hang around until I finish.

HALL OF HONOR

And it was great to see a good number of our storied alums at the Hall of Honor event in Guild Hall this past Saturday. Photo below. John Cragg was unable to accept his award in person, but his teammate, Chuck Ceronsky (1970) and my teammate, Andy Cragg (1978) stood in for him.

SAINT MICHAEL’S GAMES

After four events (Home Run Derby, Egg Toss, Wheelbarrow Relay, Somersault Relay), the score is as follows:

Uncle Moneybags 13

Saloon Girls 12

Mister Rogers 12

Big Red Rock Eaters 7

Very exciting.